The wonderful folks at BlogHer asked me to write a guest post on Social Darwinism, after President Obama’s speech last week where he evoked the phrase to critique the GOP budget. “Given the long history of racist stereotypes about poverty, and the fact that the public has a lot of misconceptions about […]
I’ve been following a number of scientist-journalist discussions in the last year in various places, including ScienceOnline2012, in the blogosphere, and on Twitter. Increasingly, I’ve come to suspect that there is often a profound lack of understanding of the respective professional cultures of scientists and journalists, which has important relevance to the […]
ScienceOnline2012 is the sixth annual meeting on science and the web, taking place in Raleigh, NC from January 19-21. It’s structured in an “un-conference” format of discussions and workshops, attended by science writers, editors, scientists, artists, and others who participate in, communicate, and discuss science on the internet. This will […]
I notice it all the time– on Facebook, in the comments of a science blog, over family gatherings, or listening to a radio talk show. Someone, maybe you, is patiently trying to explain how vaccines cause autism, perhaps, or why so-called “anthropogenic” global warming is really just due to sunspots […]
Shame on Ed Rybicki for writing Womanspace, and shame on Nature Publishing Group editor Henry Gee for giving it the seal of approval (and following it up with a glib “I’m amazed we haven’t had any outraged comments about this story.”). Shame on Nature for silencing the voices of dissenters […]
A few weeks ago, Florida governor Rick Scott made a few statements about wanting to divert education funding from some university programs in order to support science and technology fields. Let’s ignore the fact that the humanities and social sciences are just as deserving of funding and public support as […]
The Contemplative Mammoth 